Referrals

Dear Referral Sources:

Many of you have called or e-mailed and asked how families should be referred to In-Family Services. Hopefully, this document will help. Note that caregivers do not need to be referred by someone in order to make an appointment.

Caregivers make their own appointments for themselves and for their children. We ask that caregivers first go to the In-Family Services’ web site to familiarize themselves with the services before calling to make an appointment or before calling to inquire about the services here for the following reasons:

1.     The children’s therapeutic services here are child-in-family focused, with an emphasis on caregiver training to help the child habilitate as much as possible at home. If caregivers are too overwhelmed to give individual attention to one child, have minimal literacy skills or are only able to process and retain information at a basic, rudimentary level, they likely would not be able to access nor utilize the outpatient-only treatment options here. It is important for you, as a potential referral source, to familiarize yourself with this web site and what would be required of a caregiver to help their child so you will have a better idea of whom you’d like to refer.

2.    Cost for services is frozen at $80 a 60-minute hour. It is the bottom that can be charged for services. The only person to answer the phone at In-Family Services wears many hats. The phone answerer is also the clinician, the owner, the secretary, and the office manager. Adding even one employee to carry some of the load would cause costs for services to skyrocket for the consumer. Therefore, appointment scheduling begins on-line and potential referral sources and persons interested in making an appointment thoroughly investigate the In-Family Services web site to familiarize themselves with the services offered and the approach that is followed before calling to make an appointment. There simply is no one here who can spend more than a few minutes on the phone with someone in order to explain what all is offered here. Therefore, phone callers with initial questions regarding what is offered here are referred back to the web site.

3.    There is no psychiatrist (a doctor who prescribes medicine) nor psychologist (one who writes official psychological evaluations) here at In-Family Services. Lucy (Beth) Powell, LCSW, is the only clinician and she is a licensed clinical social worker. She is able to legally operate as a psychotherapist and neuro-behavioral educator.

4.    In-Family Services does not do psychological testing. Some referring entities do psychological testing on children in families and then refer the family to services here. In-Family Services must still do its own form of assessment to figure out the methods and means to help children in families who are referred here. Prior psychological testing is an aid to helping make that happen.

5.    It is not necessary for the referral source to staff the case they are going to refer with In-Family Services. Please direct the person you are referring to the In-Family Services web site so they can make the informed decision as to whether or not they would like to seek services here.

6.    Please don’t refer cases that could or knowingly will end up in court and will or could require the clinician to be a professional witness.   The clinician does not go to court. There are mental health professionals elsewhere, who do court testimony as a living, who can help in that matter.

7.    Please do not refer children who are stronger than their caregivers and who are violent and unpredictable. There is no one here at this office who could restrain them if necessary.